Tales of the Blood Moon

Safety First

There are onlyfour of us right now. Murphy, Clarence, Dillon and me. I'm not sureif we need more than just the four of us to be successful, orif we only want more, but we have every intention ofrecruiting others to join us. I had no problem with Boren Capitalbuying the metal fabrication shop, but cutting safety in order toboost profits is something I simply can't abide. Even though it'sSaturday, I know they're in there. Stanley Boren likes workingSaturdays, so he started making everyone else do it too. The four ofus are going to make certain that Boren and his corporate croniesunderstand safety is more important than profits, and we intend touse overwhelming force to drive our point home.

We're walking outof the woods, away from the river, and toward the guard shack. Agreen, late-model SUV has stopped in front of the guard shack. Ablonde girl, probably in her early twenties, is leaning out thepassenger window, holding a map and pointing toward the mountains. Rusty, the guard, says something to her that I can't hear from thisdistance and the blonde disappears back inside the SUV. We exit thewoods and close in on the shack as the SUV rolls away. Rusty turnsand sees us advancing on him. He's terror-stricken, locked in place,as we fall on him. At one time I would have said that violence neversolves anything, but I was different back then. When we feel he'sgotten the point, we stop and watch his face. It takes a littlewhile, but I can see the rage burning in his eyes and I know he's onour team now.

The five of usmake our way across the parking lot and push through the front doors. The tiny lobby is staffed only by Marcy. She looks up from herpaperwork, her bored expression shifting rapidly to horror as herbrain registers exactly what's coming. She screams as she rises,scrambling toward the production room door. Unfortunately for her,when Boren moved in, they installed a key card reader on theproduction room door. Boren, it turns out, is considerably moreparanoid that someone might steal a wrench or screwdriver than thatsomeone might get hurt in their unsafe sweatshop. Marcy is toopanicked to accurately swipe the key card she has hanging on a chainaround her neck, so she's frantically swiping the card nearthe reader, but not quite in the slide. The group wants to seize herand force her to join us, but I'm able to convince them to hold offfor a moment. I want her to open the door to the production room. With tears streaming down her face and screams pouring from herthroat, Marcy finally swipes the card. The second I see the lightturn from red to green, I reach out for her. The others are on herin an instant and she's pushed against the production room door. Shefalls through the door, a couple of my group on top of her as shegoes down. The rest of us keep moving, making our way toward thepeople in the shop.

They don't hearus, not at first. The collective roar of the machinery initiallymasks our approach but, once we get started, it doesn't take longbefore people are running and screaming. At one time, I think Iwould have felt bad for them. All they wanted - all any of uswanted, I guess - was a job with decent pay, fair benefits and theopportunity to return home to our families at the end of the day. When this is all over, the only way any of these people will ever seetheir families again is if their family members are extremelyunlucky.

It doesn't takelong for us to bring them down. They run and scream and fight back,but they eventually give in. There are fourteen of us now. Half usgo up the main set of stairs toward the offices, while the other halfascends the rear stairs, just in case some of Boren and his croniestry to beat a hasty exit out the rear.

The doors at thebottom of the stairs are heavy, designed to keep the noise from theproduction room from reaching the delicate ears of the company'selite. The people in the offices upstairs will have heard none ofthe chaos so recently erupted. When my half of the group reaches thetop of the stairs, I peer through the windows of the office doors,but all the rooms are empty. The other half of the group approachesfrom the opposite end of the hallway, and the offices they pass areempty as well. A noise from the center office - Boren's office -alerts us to everyone's whereabouts. Boren has a thing for callingall meetings in his office, probably just so he can show off how bigit is. On the plus side, everyone we're looking for is in the sameplace.

Dillon makes it tothe door before me, but he's having trouble getting the door open. I'm feeling a little less than well-coordinated myself, so I don'tblame him. Winchester, Boren's chief toady opens the door,undoubtedly annoyed that someone would dare disturb the royal retinuewhile they're in the presence of their king. Winchester doesn't evenhave time to fully understand what's happening before Dillon is onhim, pushing him back into the office. The rest of us follow suit,pressing through the door and latching on to whoever we can reach. There are too many of us for them to resist for very long, and theyfall quickly. I see Boren, clutching a letter-opener, swinging andslashing, screaming obscenities and backing toward the plate glasswindow. I advance on him, pushing past my comrades, both new andold. Boren recognizes me and howls in horror and rage, plunging theletter-opener into my shoulder, chest and neck, over and over. Theidea of "pain" is beyond me now. Rage is the only concept I canfully grasp anymore. I reach out and take him by the shoulders,pulling him toward me. My teeth sink into his cheek, then I pullaway sharply, rending flesh from bone. He's screeching and pleading,but no longer can I fathom the notions of "sympathy", "pity"or "mercy." I can feel the others pulling at me, wanting theirturn at Boren. I back away, not out of consideration for my fellows,but because I can feel the rage subsiding. With the rage subsiding,the call for vengeance fades and the dark embrace of the cold watercalls for us to return.

Boren's screamsfade to nothing and Dillon, Clarence, Murphy and I move toward theoffice door. Our gaze, simultaneously, drops to a framed picture onBoren's desk. A raven-haired woman and a young boy are smiling backat us. The picture fills my mind with something...not quiteloneliness, as that emotion is foreign to me now, but a definiteabsence of something. I look up in time to watch some of our newrecruits crumple to an inert heap on the ground, while others millaround, seemingly uncertain of what to do next. None of us has muchtime left, so my quartet keeps walking, doing our best to return tothe water before the rage is fully extinguished and we fall in theplace we currently stand. The call for us to return to the water islouder now than ever and we cannot resist it.

By the time thefour of us make our way to the lobby, all the people we enlisted havefallen. A trail of lifeless bodies leads from Boren's office to thelobby. Our recruits couldn't last without the rage, and neither canwe. I suppose, as the leaders of the group, we'll last longer thanall the rest, but even we have little time remaining. The lobbywindow casts our reflection. We're blotched and bloated, aconsequence of spending six days underwater. Blood coats almostevery inch of us. It is our faces, however, that catch my attention. The skin had already begun to fall away from our mouths but, sittingbeneath our crimson eyes, all the blood and skin of our converts andvictims hangs from our teeth and drips slowly from our chins. I ambeyond worrying about my personal appearance, but something stirs inthe back of my mind. I barely recognize myself in that reflectionand, on some remotely distant level, I think I might prefer it thatway.

We walk along theside of the building, toward the river. I cast a glance at theplatform we were standing on when the gas explosion struck that castus into the river. I notice the other three looking as well. We alllook away, but not due to any sense of regret or longing for ourformer lives. Whoever we were on that platform, we most certainlyare not anymore. Whatever lives those men on the platform had, forgood or ill, is beyond our understanding or concern. Still, there issomething about what we might have left on that platform that causesmy mind to turn back to the same sensation I felt in the office. Something is lacking but, what it is, I can't identify.

There are fewtrees near this part of the building, it's mostly just a gradualslope down into the river. We begin the final leg of our journey,making our way toward the dark, rushing water. A sound from behindgives us pause. A dark-haired woman and a young boy in a shiny carcome slowly to a stop in a parking space near the front door. Thewoman remains in the car, peering around quizzically, clearly awarethat something isn't right. In a flash, the four of us suddenlyrealize what it is that is absent. We each had other people in ourlives who mattered. Women mattered. Children mattered. We cannotdiscern their significance, but we can't dispute it, either. Thewoman cautiously exits the car and walks toward the front door whilethe boy remains in the car. The four of us turn, as one, toward theparking lot. Time is running out, and we need to go back, but wewon't be going back alone.